Self-irony: another luxury of the West? (February 2006)
by Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi
Breaking
news: We are interrupting our normal
programming in order to transmit the following breaking news. The
contents of a
papyrus scroll found in Dead Sea whose origin had already been
attributed as
the missing introductory pages of the Holy Bible, has finally been
deciphered. The deciphered contents
read as follows: All characters,
places, and events cited in this book are a pure invention of the
author. Any similarity to facts or persons
(alive or
deceased) should be considered a matter of mere coincidence.
That
was the beginning of a program of television satire broadcast in
the United States several years ago, a perfectly convincing imitation
of
breaking news from any of the network news stations.
Never mind joking about a prophet! In
the breath of one joke not only “the” word of God, but “all”
the words of God were relegated to the category of fiction!
And
still no one thought of denouncing the offense that such a joke
might have represented to the 2,039 million Christians or the 14.5
million Jews
in the world. No one emitted a fatwa to
eliminate the comedian. No one burned an embassy and no one decided to
boycott
the products that came from the comedian’s country.
Christian
rogues are a thing of past centuries. Nowadays
Judeo-Christians handle being the
target of satire with a sense of humor, without anyone crying out
accusations
of sacrilege. They are even capable of
self-irony concerning their own faith, without anyone dreaming of
incriminating
them for blasphemy. In order to enjoy
the luxury of self-irony the first pre-requisite is not to suffer from
an
inferiority complex.
giogia@giogia.com
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